Students have a particular way of looking at and using the school space which is not shared by adults. This was highlighted through a walk-and-talk exercise (a more detailed explanation of which is provided in Chapter Three). Picture 1 was taken by the researcher at the beginning of a walk-and-talk session to show the students how to use the camera. This picture acts as a demonstration of the ‘adult view’ of the school. When walking around adults tend to look at head height and focus mostly on the walls and doors as opposed to floor or ceiling, therefore, this picture is fairly centred with the walls and door filling most of the picture.
In contrast to this, Picture 2 was taken by a student during a walk-and-talk activity. In comparison to Picture 1, Picture 2 is less centred and more focused on the floor.
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Picture 2 – Student taken photograph of corridor.
This is not just ‘bad photography’ on the student’s part, it is simply that whilst the researcher and student were both pointing a camera at a corridor, they were taking pictures of different things. The adult researcher was taking a picture of the corridor and therefore centred the picture, however, the student was taking a picture of a space in which a group of students sit. In this school students tended to sit in the corridors during break and lunch times and, therefore, certain sections of corridor were ‘owned’ by certain groups of students. As well as being a floor, areas of the carpet were considered to be ‘seats’. The student was therefore taking a picture of something which adults do not see, seating areas on the floor. After doing a walk-and-talk exercise with three different groups of students, they each produced many of these floor pictures and talked about the types of groups which sat in these spaces as they did so.
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Picture 3 – Student taken photograph of floor and seating area
Picture 4 - Student taken photograph of floor and seating area
Picture 5 – Student taken photograph of floor and seating area under a flight of stairs.
Picture 6 – Student Taken photograph of a radiator around which a group of students sit.
This walk-and-talk methodology highlighted a whole new perspective and way of looking at the school and navigating the space which had not been accessible to the researcher previously and is unlikely to have become known through non-visual methodologies. This fed into further observations and was considered while walking around the school, and enabled a deeper understanding of the students’ use of space. This chapter considers the role of space and sitting in students’ lives at school in more depth.
Sitting
For students, most of the school day is spent sitting, whether it is at a desk during lessons or on the floor with friends during breaks and lunchtime. During the walk-and-talk activity the students tended to take pictures of the floor as these were specific areas in which certain groups of students sat. At this school during breaks and lunch times the students were permitted to remain inside the building and sit in corridors and empty classrooms. The topic of ‘sitting’ is one which in the initial stages of the research had not been considered to be
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particularly important. However, after observing lessons, speaking to the students, and looking at the pictures produced during the walk-and-talk activity, ‘sitting’ and the meaning, method and process of sitting became a topic of interest. Drawing on observations, discussions with students, interviews and visual methods, a more detailed account of ‘sitting’ will be given, and the implications of this will be considered.
Ownership of Space: “That’s my seat…”
Since at this school students were permitted to remain inside the building during breaks and lunchtimes, many of the groups, particularly all girl groups, tended to sit during lunch. As such, groups of students seemed to show a sense of ownership of particular spaces that the group sat in during break and lunchtime. In the following extract Kerry refers to the space that her social group sit in as ‘our corridor’.
Kerry You should walk through our corridor at lunch it is so funny because if like one of us is in a good mood we’re all in a good mood and then we all just start doing teddy bear roles and it’s just so funny
The groups in the school tended to sit in the same area every day and often members of each group sat in particular ‘seats’. It is important to note that, although referred to as ‘seats’ by the students, this could refer to a chair or a specific, unmarked place on the floor in a particular corridor. For example, during an interview, Kerry talked about a time when “Emily sat in my seat”, however she was actually referring to a space on the floor in the corridor that the group sit in. Referring to floor space as a ‘seat’ was very common, as was referring to these spaces as ‘my’ or ‘mine’. Many students expressed this sense of ownership of a particular seat that they felt to be theirs. For example, whilst standing in a corridor I observed the following:
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I was standing by the maths office and while I was waiting two girls walked past. A boy, who was standing talking to a group of students who were sitting outside a classroom, called to them “you’re not sitting in that corner are you?” the girls laughed and say yes. He swears and tells them that they can’t. He then asks me if I could unlock a door so I told him that I don’t have a key. I then took this opportunity to ask him why the girls couldn’t sit in the corner, he said “cause it’s my corner and it pisses me off when people sit in it”.
In this extract the boy refers to a particular space as ‘my corner’, thus highlighting the sense of ownership previously discussed. The girls chose to sit in that particular corner because they knew that he believed this to be his corner, thus they laugh when he questions them about it. Even though the boy is not currently sitting there, he still expects the girls not to sit there. This taking of seats is an important relationship, and is often used as a marker or process of establishing power.
In the first few weeks of the research, the ‘popular girls’ sat in a small corridor in the History Department, however, they then moved and sat at a large table in a larger area of the History Department and remained there for the duration of the year. In an interview I asked them about this move.
Siobhan so how come you moved from the History corridor to the table
Jo [more space Sian [more space
Alica [we got kicked out
Jo no there was more space we didn’t get kicked out
Sian the year sevens all sat there but we just sat there one day when they weren’t there then they sat in the corridor
The school is fairly small and space is not in abundance. During break and lunchtimes the corridors are full with students and it can be difficult to move around. Most of the indoor spaces are already claimed by certain groups, however, this can change, as in the example
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above. Students and groups develop a sense of ownership of certain spaces, although, as in the example above, these spaces can be claimed by others. In this case there was a disparity of age between the two groups, the original group sitting at the table in the History Department were year seven students (aged 11-12 years old) and the ‘popular girls’ who moved into the space are two years older. When the ‘popular girls’ moved into the History area, the year seven girls simply moved into a smaller, nearby corridor. In the previous example, the boy observed in the corridor swearing at two girls and telling them they cannot sit in his corner, the student who felt that someone had sat in their space said something about this and made efforts to reclaim their space and prevent others sitting there. However, in this example, the ‘popular girls’ simply sat in the space when the year 7 students were not there and when the year 7 students returned they did not speak to the ‘popular girls’ about this or make attempts to re-claim their space, or at least not in any way which was noticed by the popular girls. Although it has long been acknowledged that the spaces students hang out in at school are related to social groupings (for example, Shilling and Cousins, 1990; O Donoghue, 2006), the suggestion here is that space and, more specifically, ‘sitting’ and the ownership of a sitting space, is an important resource and one which is constructed in such a way as to control, reinforce, and instigate certain social practices.
As well as at group level, as in the case above, this taking of space also happens at an individual level. In the following extract Kerry talks about when someone in her social group sat in ‘her seat’, meaning her space on the floor in the corridor where the group sit.
Kerry at one point she was like a nice girl like but then I suppose it’s just when she realised that more people liked her like now in our group (.) even Jess said like she feels she thinks that she’s in control of our group like this sounds really stupid but in our where we sit like we all have like a seat Siobhan yeah
Kerry and then (.) I think like Emily sat in my seat or something and then I was like move over and she was like yeah Emily that’s not your seat or something like that
Amber you didn’t need to say that I think she noticed like
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The girls are discussing a particular girl in their social group, Mia, and whether she has changed and become more unpleasant, more specifically, whether she has become controlling. In this example Kerry is describing a time when Emily sat in her seat. This in itself is noteworthy as it reinforces the argument that sitting, far from being trivial, is a topic of importance since here it is clear that Kerry felt ownership for a specific seat and someone, even a friend, sitting in her seat is an incident worth retelling. Kerry tells Emily to ‘move over’ since she is sat in her seat, she then says that Mia adds ‘yeah Emily that’s not your seat’. Although Kerry does want Emily to vacate her seat, the girls are critical of Mia’s additional comment. The girls felt that it was not Mia’s place to defend Kerry’s seat and that her comment, therefore, is evidence of her being controlling. Finally, in our conversation about the incident, Amber adds ‘you didn’t need to say that I think she noticed’, referring to Mia’s comment. This highlights the shared knowledge and understanding of seats and seat ownership. To point out that Emily is sitting in Kerry’s seat and that she should move is felt to be stating the obvious and therefore unnecessary.
Being the ‘seat taker’ is a position of power in comparison to being the person whose seat has been taken. In comparison to the extract above where Kerry defends her seat and tells Emily to move when she sits in it, in the following extract Kerry talks about sitting in Sara’s seat in a lesson. She claims ‘it’s only a seat’, however her sitting in Sara’s seat is still an event worth relaying and one which her friends commented on at the time. Kerry (the seat taker) is in a position of power and is therefore able to claim ‘it’s just a seat’.
Kerry in Spanish erm I sat in Sara’s seat didn’t I Michaela yeah
Kerry and then erm Mia we like I did warn her I did warn her
Michaela I know
Kerry I was like I don’t get the point I don’t care (laughs) It’s only a seat
In this discussion the girls are laughing and find it amusing that Kerry had taken Sara’s seat in this way. By saying ‘I did warn her’, Kerry demonstrates that taking her seat was a method of punishment. After being warned, Sara was expected to modify her behaviour and, since she did not, Kerry took her seat. In this chapter the existence of ‘seats’ and the resulting sitting norms and practices will be shown to enable a variety of social functions relating to ownership, control, and exclusion.
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School and Student Ownership Clashes
Although staff seem to ‘own’ much of the school space, there are some areas within schools that can be seen to be ‘undefined public space’, such as hallways, toilets and playgrounds (Astor et al., 2001). In these spaces there are tensions (Gordon and Lahelma, 1996) as the two spaces have very different cultures; one school dominated and fronted by the teacher and the other student dominated; thus movement from one into another signifies a change in norms and expectations (Dickar, 2008). This is highlighted by one of the students in Dickar’s (2008: 78) study; whilst adopting a teacher-as-researcher role she was talking to a student in the corridor who informed her “we in the halls Miss. You ain’t got no weight”. Therefore, as well as between students, demonstrations and struggles for ownership of space exist between staff and students. In many senses it is the school and the staff who can be seen to own and control the use of space. In the following extract the girls are recounting all of the spaces that they have sat in during their time at the school. They are giving explanations and reasons for leaving each space, most of which seem to revolve around a teacher or someone from the school moving the students on. In the following extract the students are talking about why they left the Maths Department. The girls feel that the reasoning for their removal was unjustified but, in this case at least, the school seem to control students’ use of space by granting or denying access to them.
Sian we’ve been everywhere we have (.) (laughing a little) we made our territory
Jo we’ve sat in music before Bianca have we?
Jo yeah we sat in music when we got kicked out of maths
Bianca oh yeah
Siobhan why did you get kicked out of maths? Lorelai because of Blaine
Jo because of Blaine (.) he used to throw jacket potatoes
Alica whose hair did it go in?
Jo Laura’s (.) (laughing a little) and it went in her mouth (.) that was so funny
Lorelai ah I hate Blaine
Siobhan so someone threw jacket potatoes at you lot (.) [and you lot got kicked out
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Lorelai yeah
Alica we always get kicked out for other people Jo yeah even if it’s not our fault
Bianca always
Sian but now we’re getting older so they’ve just left us where we are (.) the older you get the more respect you get that’s what I say
Sian says ‘we made our territory’, thus reinforcing the suggestion of a student sense of ownership of space, but also the claiming of space. No spaces in the school are automatically assigned to students so students must move into spaces and take ownership, as in the case above of the popular girls moving into the space in the History Department. Also, as discussed previously, multiple understandings and ideas about ownership of certain spaces exist so again these spaces have to be claimed and this can cause clashes and conflicts, as in the case above. In this scenario, the staff have re-claimed the space because of what is deemed as students’ inappropriate behaviour, however it is debatable whether the staff have total, unchallenged control over all of the space in the school.
Although the staff often did have the power to grant or deny access to space, as in the example above, as the students claimed ownership of a space they were able to control whether staff felt able to access certain areas of the school and in this sense the students can be seen to control certain spaces. In the following extract from field notes, I had been talking to two members of staff in the staff room, a new PGCE teacher and a more experienced teacher. They were discussing walking through a corridor in the school that the ‘popular girls’ sat in and how they were treated when they did so.
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A PGCE teacher came in and said that Bianca had been rude to her because the teacher had asked her to move her legs. The teacher had walked along a corridor in which the girls were sat with their backs against the wall and legs stretched out across the width of the corridor. I noticed myself in my first week here that they do not move their legs when a member of staff walks along the corridor. It’s as if someone has placed a ladder with rungs made of legs along the length of the corridor and you have to walk over it being careful to step over each rung and place your foot in the space between, all the while being watched by the students. The PGCE teacher was saying that the students clearly don’t like her or respect her because they don’t move their legs for her when she walks down the corridor. The more experienced teacher said that this isn’t the case because the students don’t move their legs for her either and in fact they don’t move their legs for anyone (Observation 17/04/13).
Although staff could move students from a space if they were breaking the rules, they could